Obscura: A True Crime Podcast

Martinez met a married woman on a dating app. He eventually met up with her and her husband, Anthony Brines. After a night of drinking, smoking marijuana, and using a Ouija board, a violent altercation broke out that would change their lives forever.  Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use my c...

Obscura is not AI slop. It will never be AI slop. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle...

Canticle: another name for a song Vulnerable:  (of a person) in need of support or protection Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.com...

On a scorching July afternoon, a routine arrival home turns into a neighborhood nightmare. A father steps inside his air-conditioned house to play video games, leaving his sleeping toddler in the car under the assumption that the vehicle's cooling system is running. Hours later, emergency sirens pierce the quiet suburban cul-de-sac. Intro Song: Affliction Artist :  SubRosa Our Sponsors: * Chec...

The call went out at roughly one forty in the morning on March sixteenth, 2018, and it pulled the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office toward a scene that the deputies who responded would not be able to put down easily afterward, because some scenes do not let go of the people who walk into them. What waited inside the house is among the worst this show has had occasion to describe Our Sponsors:...

There is a village in the apple country of western New York called Sodus, up in Wayne County near the south shore of Lake Ontario, about thirty miles east of Rochester. This is fruit-belt land, orchard and muck field running back from the lake, roadside stands selling cider in the fall, the big cold lake holding the frost off the trees in spring. In October the orchards go heavy and the light come...

Aileen had been pawning items from her victims: tools missing from David Spears's truck, a camera that had belonged to Richard Mallory, other items linked to other victims. Florida law required pawnshops to take a thumbprint from anyone hocking goods, and the prints were on file. Aileen, while filling out pawnshop intake forms, had been using the alias Cammie Marsh Greene. A signed pawn slip w...

The wooded lot itself was mixed scrub of the sort that grows in the disturbed soil along an interstate corridor in central Florida. Pine. Palmetto. A few scrub oaks. Spanish moss hanging where the canopy thickened. The understory of vines and dead palm fronds that turns any walk off the shoulder into a careful one. The lot was bordered on one side by the interstate, on another by a service road, a...

This is part two of a four part series. Last episode, we walked her childhood. The fire at age six. The grandfather and the belt. The kitten in the bucket. The cigarette pig nickname at age eleven. The pregnancy at fourteen. The baby boy taken from her in March of 1971. Her grandmother Britta dying that July. Her grandfather throwing her out a few weeks later. The sleeping bag in the woods on the...

She had stopped going to school. She had no money. There was no adult on the planet looking for her. What she had was a sleeping bag in the snow. Her name was Aileen Carol Pittman. The world would come to know her by her grandparents’ last name. Wuornos. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use m...

In 2011, a quiet neighborhood in Bakersfield, California, was shattered by a crime so severe it left veteran investigators shaken. The case began with the frantic search for a missing eight-year-old girl and ended in a tense, seven-hour SWAT standoff. Ray Coriell, the man at the center of the storm, faced a barrage of charges that exposed a harrowing betrayal of trust and a level of violence that...

Double Homicide: The House on Benchor Road - Part 02 Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Support this podcast at — https://redcir...

Double Homicide: The House on Benchor Road - Part 01 Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Support this podcast at — https://redcir...

A two-year-old boy was found dead in his crib in Clinton Township, Michigan, starved to death while his mother streamed on Twitch. Featuring real court audio from the sentencing, Obscura examines the 2023 case of Sierra Pearl Zaitona and Jonathon Matthew Cheek, two parents who let their child waste away in silence. The boy had been in foster care before being returned to his biological parents, Si...

Leslie Preer was murdered in her Chevy Chase, Maryland home on May 2, 2001. For 23 years the case sat cold. This episode features court audio from the August 2025 sentencing and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally identified her killer. Leslie Ann Jennings Preer, 48, was a wife, mother, and former University of Florida journalism student. Born in North Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1952 a...

Black Label: The Station Nightclub Fire Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscu...

Two women strangled in two days by the same man in Jacksonville, Florida -- one killed at a motel on Christmas night, the other a beloved teacher murdered in her own home the next morning. This episode features real interrogation footage and court audio. Leah Kline's life ended on December 25, 2019. She and Zebulon Perkins had been staying at a Westside Jacksonville motel when an argument turn...

Abraham Shakespeare won thirty million dollars in the Florida Lottery. Three years later, he was dead -- shot twice, buried under concrete in Lakeland, Florida. This episode features real court recordings and interrogation audio. Abraham Shakespeare, 43, was a truck driver's assistant from Lakeland, Florida, who lived simply and was known for his generosity. Friends described him as someone wh...

For nearly a decade, a predator stalked the quiet marshlands and sugarcane fields of southeastern Louisiana, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. In this episode, we dive into the chilling case of  Ronald Dominique , a man who confessed to the rape and murder of at least 23 men and boys between 1997 and 2006.Despite a victim count that rivals some of history's most notorious killers, Dominiq...

For nearly a decade, a predator stalked the quiet marshlands and sugarcane fields of southeastern Louisiana, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. In this episode, we dive into the chilling case of  Ronald Dominique , a man who confessed to the rape and murder of at least 23 men and boys between 1997 and 2006.Despite a victim count that rivals some of history's most notorious killers, Dominiq...

In Bridgeville, PA, George Sodini executed a chilling attack inside a gym. Featuring real audio. George Alfred Sodini, 48. He was a systems analyst, once invisible and misunderstood, who turned his personal darkness into devastation. On August 4, 2009, in Collier Township, Pennsylvania, Sodini walked into an LA Fitness gym with a duffel bag, setting the stage for chaos. As he turned off the lights...

Marvin Morales found brutally murdered in his Sacramento, CA home. Real audio of police investigation. Marvin Aris Untalan Morales, young and full of potential, became a tragic figure in Sacramento. Known for his vibrant personality and love for music, his life was cruelly cut short. On December 2, 2010, Morales's life was taken in the most violent of ways. His body was discovered in his home,...

A fan’s obsession turned fatal — The Stalker Files revealed. Ricardo López was an ordinary name behind an extraordinary obsession. He convinced himself he knew Björk intimately, though they had never met. Ricardo’s fixation consumed his thoughts, spiraling into actions that only his twisted mind understood. Lured by her music and public persona, he embarked on a path that eclipsed his grip on real...

Brandon Paul Janssen's tragic tale unfolds in Fountain, FL. Featuring real court and investigative audio. Brandon Paul Janssen, once a beacon of innocence, faced the malign neglect of those who should have protected him. At the heart of a rural community's landscape, his story remains a chilling reminder of justice denied. In 2020, the quiet community of Fountain, Florida, witnessed an atr...

BLACK LABEL CONTENT — Premium subscribers only Heather Strong's murder case unravels into a deeper nightmare, fueled by sordid betrayal. Featured audio includes shocking interrogation clips. This Black Label episode pulls back the curtain on the relentless investigation that seeks justice for Heather. A case stained by manipulation and betrayal. Heather Strong was 26, a devoted mother battling...